[Rampancy] (Contracts & Employment Agency) The Pied Piper, Stage One: Meeting the Matryoshka

[Crocmon]

//Mission START


//Initializing proper variables


//BEGIN MISSION


//Contract Details:


// You, WHITE_RABBIT and LANE, have been assigned with a special task from Long Corporation. You are to


// defend a high-value target from any assault she may come under. However, you do not have her as it stands.


// Your first objective for this multi-part contract is to obtain her, and take her to a safe-house. You will interface


// with any forces that Long Corporation decides to apply to this mission to rendezvous a pickup, and take the


// infamous Matryoshka to the nearest CEA Safehouse to her concert's location. She is not to come under any


// harm whatsoever. If she is harmed in any debilitating way, EliteBeats is likely to cut this contract.


// The legal terminology used in the wording of this deal is vague, but it is generally understood that she can


// take minor injury, as long as it does not ultimately interfere with her performing capabilities. She must be


// safe at the end of this stage. Upon completion, you will await her concert at the safehouse.


//Mission Reward Upon Completion: [ESTABLISHED BY LONG CORPORATION]


//Mission-specific Bonus Rewards: [TBA]


/* OOC: Belial will post now, posting a reward and the forces he will be assigning to this mission. Please await his orders before continuing. */

 

[Belial]

Long corperation has chosen to dedicate the following forces to this mission:


1000 Infantry:


100 Transport choppers:


50 gunships:


100 Lavs:


The Following rewards are offered by Long Corperation Under the following Stipulations:


5000 C A peace, in addition to 2 free Skill bumps to any skill you so choose to get (at a cost of 5% humanity, or 10% if it gos over a 10.)


On the condition that the girl remains intact and in good health, unmolested, and in my employ. If Your actions, or lack there of cosses me to lose our rather costly Contract with Ms Matryoshka, well Ill assume you are creative enough to think of what happens next.


Do all this and keep collateral damages to a minimum if not non existent and do not cost Long Corp a fortune and youll get an additional bonus based off of your level of performance.

 

[highdarklord]

Lance chuckled as he thought about what all resources were being provided to the Employees carrying out this contract. "We've got ourselves quite a regular ol' army here, eh WHITE_RABBIT?" He stated calmly as he waited for the LAVs to arrive.


"I figure the game plan should be kept fairly simple for getting to her and getting her to the safe house. I'm thinking 50 of the LAVs form a central convoy that she'll be in, along with at least me, I don't know if you want to be right in the thick of things if it gets hairy. The other LAVs will form two flanking convoys that can cut through streets to respond to the main convoy if it comes under attack, or at least otherwise screen us from an assault. I figure, split the gunships up the same way, 30 on center with 10 going to the flanks. Split the infantry the same way, 500 with me, 250 on the flanks. If you don't want to ride with the main convoy, I'd have no objections to you taking a couple LAVs and some troops to have as a personal guard. You're the only real electronic support we can expect to have here I suspect."

 

[Tempest]

Alice nervously glanced over to Lane, an imposing soldier armed to the teeth. Sure, in her zone and hidden away in her rabbit hole, Alice sounded like an electronic 12 year old boy, and was a wizard with computers. Yet out here, oh out here she couldn't handle. What really scared her, however, was the fact that Long Corporation had insisted in providing a bona fide army to guard... one rockstar. A rockstar who happened to also have at least 50 songs, a la covers or original tracks, on the White Rabbit's mp3 player...


She smiled a bit and shrugged at Lane's suggestion. "I dunno... this seems a bit overkill for one person. In any case, I'll just ride in the main convoy with you, though honestly I would prefer if we had about a tenth of this..." Re-looking everything over, she then glances back to Lane. "So, this is what you look like when not through a grainy camera. Intriguing."

 

[Crocmon]

LANE, aka Lance Nemo


Through your years, you had quite a bit of experience with situations like this. She was a high-value target for anyone on the other side. You'd been trained for this. The HVT was more than famous, she was damn near a legend at this rate. Looking around you there was a news-stand, and the holographic paper - which was really a computer screen on a surface akin to paper that had anything from moving images to sound bytes - had a picture of who you assumed was the Matryoshka on it. It didn't show her face, but it had her moving the dials in a short, half-second loop. The lights were flickering madly, making a dazzling display of the energy of her music. Some teenagers were eagerly buying some of the magazines, with their youthful displays of naivety reflecting the somewhat odd nature of the world today. The amount of traffic around here was awfully low, but there were no real indicators as to why. Long Corporation hadn't set up the necessary roadblocks, if they were going to.


The army was just around the corner though, judging by the air units coming into the field of view relatively quickly, over the building you were currently standing in the plaza of. It was a general tram station, much more neat and organized. You had taken the tram together from the Long Corporation HQ.


WHITE_RABBIT, aka Alice Keyes


The magazines were dazzling, and the teenagers were adequately dressed for the job. One of the songs had a video associated to it, and they were dressed almost exactly to it. As they bought the magazine issue and walked off, they were rambunctiously jumping away singing to themselves the tune of their obviously favorite song. You recognized it, it was on your music player. It was a catchy tune that shared its name with the musician herself, and was about being zany and weird for the sake of being zany and weird.


However, as the bona fide army came to the plaza for pickup, you felt a bit more uneasy. Luckily there was one familiar face here.

 

[Belial]

(second image is broken)

 

[Crocmon]

(I clicked and got it, try again. I'll look for a different one though, just in case. EDIT: I just used a different picture.)

 

[highdarklord]

Lance grinned when she said that, "Yeah, grainy cameras just aren't my thing," he chuckled before getting slightly more serious again, "Honestly, I feel like this is the most in-ideal number of forces. We have too few to have a squad on every block along the way and an LAV blocking every intersection for six blocks out, and too many to be able to sneak her around the city... we might just end up using every single one of these guys and vehicles as a decoy and take a taxi," he chuckled at this before looking over at her himself.


"Well, you certainly don't just look different than I expected, but you also sound a lot different in person, less... electronic-ish... I guess is the way to say it... kind of?" he stumbled a bit over the words, not sure how to properly proceed. "I will say this, its a huge relief to know there's going to be some competent electronics assistance. Your skills are a set I'm hopelessly useless in."

 

[Tempest]

Alice rocked back on her heels and tilted her head sideways. "Y'know... that decoy idea might work. Shame we didn't have a psionic to make duplicate taxis or something... I dunno if they can even do that, but who cares?" She shrugged, leaning forward again before sipping some coffee. "So, is blowing stuff up the only thing you're good at? At all?"

 

[Crocmon]

LANE and WHITE_RABBIT, aka Lance Nemo and Alice Keyes respectively


As your dialogue hit an awkward silence, a lone dropship bearing the logo of the North Korean military came through the openly blank airways. It seemed to stop in place, and dropped a strange box-like object from it before zooming off. What unfolded from this box was clear to see, and it wasn't pretty. The mech that unfolded was an older model, created for military use by national governments. This was an old design, created shortly after the Promethean Era and has been a favorite by anti-corporate organizations the world over.


"Agents LANE and WHITE_RABBIT, I am LOTUS, a Long Corporation asset sent to provide assistance."


You two looked towards a single dropship that held the HUD elements indicating it was where LOTUS was communicating from. It lowered down, and a young woman stepped out. As she did so, the mech turned to face her. She seemed young, almost criminally so. But, WHITE_RABBIT's implants would run a quick scan and find that she had no history and that the callsign 'LOTUS' had no previous history.


"You are Corporate pawns! All of you! The Matryoshka and her influence is for the Government of North Korea! Stand down and surrender her or-"


"Or what? You'll kill them? They're Employees, dumbass."


"And you aren't? What are you then?!"


"I am LOTUS,"


LOTUS concentrated psionic energy and charged directly into the mech at near light speed. She slammed into it, and did a spin away from it. Holding herself in position, she threw blasts of psionic energy into the mech to knock it on its back. The blasts were pushing the mech into the pavement, causing minor damage. More damage was caused when it slammed into the dirt.


"Asset of Long Corporation, and you're my newest toy."


The mech righted itself, and turned to face you two.



. (Close video after the circle closes) The mech before you was a unique one of its kind, being piloted by an Ace the likes of which had won multiple national wars by himself. However, his record against Corporate power seemed to be bolstered with guerrilla attacks on Corporations that were already falling apart. He could fight a traditional battle, but you two were anything but traditional. A quick scan through its weak firewalls and WHITE_RABBIT would see that it was being employed by an ultra-nationalist sect of the North Korean government. Time resumed, and LANE would notice that it had some weakened joints due to the Psionic blasts. However, WHITE_RABBIT would also notice that its programming contained several protocols that would eject the pilot and allow some hijacking to occur.
LOTUS held her ground, and the mech engaged her. She erected a barrier around herself, and was warping it into a cup of sorts to catch the bullets being fired at her. "Hurry up you two, do something!" She shouted.

 

[highdarklord]

Lance chuckled, "To be honest, I'm not that great at making things go boom. I'm much better at either putting a whole lot of bullets into them with my rifle or literally ripping them apart with my hands in some form or another," he shrugged though, "To be completely honest, as a member of the Nemo family, I was trained very specifically to do my job as a soldier. To say that I'm... bad with computers is an understatement. I can survive, but I was trained to rely on a person who knows what they're doing with them to do something like get around a locked door quietly. My schooling in history was extensive though, especially the periods of the 1900's and 2000's CE, along with much of the Roman Empire. It was... enjoyable for me to learn about them."


He was about to awkwardly try to continue talking when he saw the dropship come flying in. Before the mech had even hit the ground, Lance had already readied and charged his main rifle, looking towards Alice, "Get to cover! Stay out of the line of fire RABBIT!"


"SIRJTAA Company Type 2, Model Style C. Nothing fancy except... I see... modified. Heavily... Ace-class pilot. Weakened joints. Good job LOTUS..." Lance muttered to himself as he quickly began to strafe to a point where he could pour fire into the weakest knee joint area he could target.

 

[Tempest]

Alice's first reaction was to bolt. That's all that ran through her head. So, she did just that, her white jacket making her appear like a rabbit on the run. However, as soon as she was behind some cover, a wall really, she immediately fired up her laptop, and was already using her implants to analyze the target, and two viruses were beginning to gnaw away at the enemy's firewall.


After the laptop was up, her world opened like a symphony to be played. Like directing a string quartet, Alice began to redirect codes, numbers, and signals of the machine, starting the hijacking process. Finding that baseline too powerful for the symphony, she sent a virus (or three) straight to the pilot's implants- if nothing, then he would be distracted. This machine, this ugly hulking beast designed to take on corporations, would become her symphony of destruction. As the string quartet rose in volume, she brought in the woodwinds of the mainframe, and the firewall crashed like the sound of cymbals. Now, she began redirecting the machine to misbehave for the pilot, any way to better the situation for LOTUS and LANE. They would be the co-conductors, and oh that upstart has an eject~


The end result would be the other two Employees seeing the machine doing a weird jig, getting into perfect positions to be attacked and exploited, and suddenly the man, the ace, the brain, the pilot of the machine would be seen ejecting like an unwanted piece of trash. Yes, it was fun being a hacker against poorly trained enemy systems, sometimes.

 

[Crocmon]

LANE, aka Lance Nemo


As you fired into the joints, the mech began to move. It was obvious he wasn't fond of the gunfire, as he twisted to you and revved his weapons. However, as he began to fire LOTUS slammed into the side of the mech as a ball of psionic force. The giant machine staggered, and then began to dance. She held it upright and levitated at the pilot's level, almost as if she knew was was going to happen next.


WHITE_RABBIT, aka Alice Keyes


The mech's pilot was reacting harshly to your viral attacks. He screamed and yelled, you hearing it almost as if you had psionics. You realized though, that he was wired to the brim with taps. If there was an inkling of information, it was going to whoever was paying for his implants. He wasn't an Employee, so blowing his parts to bits was pretty fine. However, your attempt to sever communications was just a moment too late to stop the ultranationalist North Korean military from seeing what was going on. They knew you hacked him, and they knew he was dead. They cleared out, but luckily they didn't get to delete enough information from his implants before you started shooting viral attacks at them. He still knew a bit, granted the ejection didn't give him post-traumatic amnesia.


"Who the Hell are you peo-" he shouted just before the mech's cockpit opened up and he slammed into the ground. He looked wired, his arms artificial and his torso left unclothed due to the heavy modifications. Arguably it may have been clothing, but it looked far too metal for it to be so. Peeking around your wall, you'd see he had his eyes modified. There was a holographic screen over his face, but he only saw "MISSION FAILURE - EMPLOYMENT TERMINATED" on them. They blinked, and he dropped his face into the pavement as a sign of resignation. The seat he had formerly inhabited looked cozy to a certain RABBIT, though. Adjustable seat, and a quick internet search would yield you anything you'd need to know on how to pilot it. It sure would bolster a certain army nicely.


ALL UNITS


"Well," LOTUS would remark as her feet gently touched the ground, producing a strange screwdriver like object from her belt, "You all are free to interrogate him as you see fit. If not, I'm going to do a chip-rip on him. His non-employee means he isn't getting cloned, so tearing him apart for upgrades won't get a hit on you. At least," She giggled in a manner far too innocent for her display during the fight, "Not from anyone worth being scared of..." Her smile was devious as she twirled the object between her fingers.

 

[Belial]

Long Corp Notice


Long Corp is willing to Pay Rather well for good salvage that we can use. Further more we will be posting a bonus for any information That can be gathered on the sect of the North Korean goverment that Just dropped this Mech on my Operation. We do not take kindly to outside interference, and Abbot Long himself tkaes it as a personal attack on himself that needs to be rectified. As such any information on leaders, locations and plans will be rewarded, further more the possability of follow up work is almost guaranteed for those willing once your current mission has been completed.


(Basically we are willing to Transfer somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 into each of your accounts for Securing that Mech if your willing to turn it over when your don) We will ofcorse be sending an reclamation team to the area asap.

 

[highdarklord]

Lance grinned slightly as he walked over to where the man was laying down in resignation, "Oh, I'm going to have fun with this guy," he stated as he reloaded his rifle and racked it on his back, kneeling down in front of the man.


"Fun fact: the adult body has about 206 bones in it. Obviously, you're missing a few at the moment. So, lets say you reasonably have... ohh... about 120 or so. If you'd like to keep that number that low, you'd do well to cooperate. You don't want to know how I can make 120 become 360 or so without killing you. Further, to say that your legs are oh so very easy to inflict massive amounts of pain... well, to put it simply, your toes shouldn't be able to touch your shin, and thats because of your achilles tendon. If the achilles tendon ruptures or is torn, it hurts comparably, if not more so, than a broken bone. And that's if its a clean cut, if a cut at all."


He chuckled somewhat darkly, "Cooperating with me is the best way of course. If you don't, then you become Long Corporation's personal play-toy. That is... well, that is much, much worse for you than anything I could or would ever do. After all, they have the resources to kill you and bring you back to life again and again and again."

 

[Crocmon]

ALL UNITS


LOTUS will put her index finger to her ear, triggering a line of communication between her and COMMAND. "You sure we can't let them use it for this run? I'm sure WHITE_RABBIT knows enough to have its maintenance routines hold it together. And if not, even wrecked we could rebuild it through post-mission review of the footage." Her voice would be like a kid asking her dad to let her go out partying.


If anything, it was a little unsettling to even some of the nearby men, who were coming in to secure the mech.


[EDITING IN RESPONSE TO LANE]

 

[Belial]

(On a side note, I love how HDL knows me so well. he cant even see my researchs and knows that I can bring Some one back to life just so I can kill them again. What He failed to mention though Is I can not only do tat but transfer over the memory of his previous life even up to it ending, and whats worse Is I can create all knew sense and nerves with witch to feel and experience pain with!)


They Killed. it they keep it. What they choose to do with it is their business, Im just letting it be known that we are in fact Offering a reward for Salvage of technology that we do not currently posses. The Body and the Mech belong to you all, though if i may, I would ask you please to keep the collateral damage to a minimum, this country is our curent home country and I would like to keep the population from charging our gates with pitchforks ad torches.

 

[Crocmon]

LANE, aka Lance Nemo


The man seemed hesitant at first. He was outright chuckling until you mentioned him being brought back again and again. That seemed to get him scared. "Oh no, please don't give me to those crazy corpies! They'll force me into an Employee vat... No no no!"


He was begging at this point. You just let him out of an embarrassed reaction, waiting for him to realize he was supposed to talk. He looked to LOTUS, then to you and WHITE_RABBIT. He grew a bit of a spine, but just enough to stop from pissing himself. "You corpie bastards... The Ultranationalist Faction of North Korea will shut you down! I guess telling you a few things won't hurt. Because even if I'm dead, they'll find somebody else! Unlike you, we mean what we f-fight for! Where if we cut your clone contract you d-don't come back, there's so many more of us waiting for the job p-position to open up! We are the ones who will overthrow the Corporations and their m-mind-controlling b-bullshit!" He coughed a little, obviously a side-effect from the chip overload given to him by WHITE_RABBIT. Shaking his head, he looked up at you. "I ain't got anything else to t-tell y-you f-f-fucks!"


His voice was raspy, stuttering a lot. He seemed defiant, until LOTUS took a step and pointed the business end of her tool toward the ground like she would a knife. His eyes got wide. He wasn't done, just trying to ease himself into thinking he had an upper hand here.

 

[highdarklord]

Lance chuckled, "Is that so? You know, a lot of people like you have thought that before... I say thought because they can't think when they're dead obviously..."


"Here's the thing... there can't be very many of you, simple logic dictates that. Otherwise the corporation wouldn't be in control. Hell, I'll issue this challenge to you right now: I'd bet your life on the fact that I could single handily destroy your entire base of operations in less than an hour. Want to know why I'm so confident in this? Because of how easily you were just dealt with. You were sent to stop two employees and a small army from doing their mission. You were stopped, defeated, and captured, in less than a minute."


"Even if you don't want to take me up on that challenge, here's the thing: who's financing you guys? Who's supplying you with your weapons and equipment? Where are you recruiting people from?"

 

[Belial]

If he doesnt want to talk to yall, inform him we will be downloading his entire mind to a computer, and not only will we continuously bring him back ill be pubickly posting access to all his memorys for every one wishing to get revenge. aim sure i can make a fortune selling licenses to kill him.

 

[Crocmon]

ALL UNITS


The man was visibly shaken, and LOTUS approached slowly with a creepy grin. "I c-c-can't tell you anything more! We're an ultranationalist sect of the North Korean government. Where as the w-weaker side of the g-government is willing to play by Corporate rules..." He began to stutter more, "W-w-w-we're not! F-f-fuck..."


"We are supposed to be grabbing the Matryoshka, making her our pawn to play with! G-getting lev... Leverage over you Corpies!" He looked at LOTUS, fearing his life. "Don't let them kill me!"


LOTUS smirked. "When you're done interrogating a man who just pissed himself, I'll take care of him. His implants will probably tell us more than he could reliably tell us."

 

[Tempest]

All this time, Alice had been busy drinking her coffee, poking around at the mech. "Sheesh, what do these guys use... aw come on! Can't they..." and muttering other such things along the way. For a girl who looked like she belonged more at a college dorm, Alice was being surprisingly giddy at the sight of something that could kill her. She nearly squealed in surprise and happiness at the offer of being able to pilot it, and without heeding Long Corporation, had already begun reworking the technicals of the machine, content to ignore the interrogation.


At hearing Lotus give the a-ok to get about to interrogating, Alice just merely walked over to the seat. "You guys handle creeping him out... this chair, I want it!" She then set about comparing its ports to her laptop, seeing if it was workable.

 

[highdarklord]

Lance shook his head, "Here's the thing. I know you can tell us a lot more. The only question is whether you're going to do so willingly, or if we're going to have to rip the implants out of you while you're still alive to figure it out. Where was the base that you came from? What's the bank account number you use to get paid? Hell, who'd you get the mech from? Who modified it for you? We don't have a lot of time for this bud. You can cooperate or we can chip rip you, without taking the time to end your life first."


He chuckled, "Or, I suppose I could just hand you over to LOTUS right now. Let her have her way with you. The best part is, that unlike me, she'll ship you out to a corpie research facility and you'll get to go in the vat. Again, and again, and again."

 

[Crocmon]

LANE, aka Lance Nemo


"You'll have t-to rip my brain out and pore over it, you f-f-fuck! I'm not hooked up to them anymore, so good luck finding a trace!" At this point, the man was at his last moment of defiance. He said that, then his head lowered in acceptance. He knew he was done, and that this was the end of it. He didn't cry anymore, nor even resist as LOTUS came over to him and put her hand to his face. She held it up, and stabbed into his ear with the device. You heard it click, and some flesh move around inside. These devices were able to send out small drones into organic tissue that would search out implants. In this case, they pulled out the core memory chip in his skull's implant suite. With a tearing of flesh and the thud of his head hitting the ground, LOTUS tore the implant from him. She looked it over, her own implants scanning the chip and copying its memories to her own.


"We'll get this taken care of in the post-op debriefing,"


WHITE_RABBIT, aka Alice Keyes


Sitting in the mech, you found it all sorts of comfortable. The damage done to it was minimal at best, nothing some repurposed repair mechanisms couldn't fix. As the cockpit reset itself to accomodate for you, the screens and the like began to hook up. One screen popped up, prompting you with a simple question.


You are not synchronized with this mech. Would you like to synchronize with this mech?


You made a cautionary scan of the mech's systems came up totally green. The ultranationalists were only using surveillance programs to watch their pilot, and maybe even a line of communication or two. Other than that, there were no mind-controlling routines in place. By 'synchronize' it would mean that the machine provide a jack for you to rest the back of your head on. From there, it would put the mech's control systems in your head. It would be as if you were the mech. Your body - in the cockpit - would make the appropriate movements.

 

[highdarklord]

Lance shook his head, "Have fun being born and killed again and again. Long Corporation, the guy is all yours. Have fun," he said the first sentence to the guy as the pilot hung his head in acceptance. The rest, was obviously said as much to LOTUS as it was to the overwatch corporate drones.


"Time for us to get going with the meat of the mission. You ready WHITE_RABBIT?" Lance asked of her, watching her doing her thing with the mech. He shook his head, chuckling. He wasn't too fond of mechs. Didn't have the same responses as a human body could when properly trained.